Udall joins other senators to press Obama on NSA reforms • WASHINGTON — Sen. Mark Udall and a bipartisan group of senators will meet with President Barack Obama on Thursday to discuss concerns about the National Security Agency's bulk phone-data collection program, his office confirmed.

Udall, a Democrat, will press the White House to support his legislation to require that the NSA demonstrate a suspect's link to terrorism or espionage before collecting their phone records.

All week,Udall and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon have urged the White House to end a program, authorized by the Patriot Act, that indiscriminately collects phone records and metadata of every American.

Udall has called the collection — which doesn't include the content of phone conversations — a "dragnet" that doesn't help protect the United States from a terrorist attack.

"We need to strike a better balance between protecting our country against the threat of terrorism and defending our constitutional rights," Udall said on the Senate floor Tuesday. "The bulk phone-records collection program, as we know it today, does not meet this balance test, and that's why I believe it must end."

Udall also talked about the NSA programs Sunday on CBS News' "Face the Nation."

From his perch on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Udall has publicly warned that the Obama administration's interpretation of certain parts of the Patriot Act could be violating Americans' constitutional rights to privacy.

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More light was shed on the NSA's actions after former government contractor Edward Snowden leaked confidential information to media outlets about the administration's domestic-spying efforts. Snowden is now marooned in an airport in Russia.

Udall has introduced legislation, along with Wyden, that would greatly reduce the federal government's ability to collect data on Americans' phone calls without a demonstrated link to terrorism. Allison Sherry, The Denver Post

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